American Legion Baseball: Smittys' bats provide victory

July 21, 2007|By American News Sports Staff

Key hits from Jordan Foster and Justin Kline boosted the Aberdeen Smittys to an 11-7 American Legion baseball victory over Huron Friday at Fossum Field. Foster had a two-run double during Aberdeen's three-run fifth inning that helped the hosts take the lead for good, and Kline hit a bases-loaded triple as part of a five-run seventh inning that extended the Aberdeen lead. Assistant coach Valdie Magstadt said the Smittys' pitching and defense (four errors) weren't at their best on Friday so it was crucial the hitting stepped things up a notch. “We fell behind a lot of hitters and kicked the ball around, which cost us a couple of runs,” said Magstadt. “Lucas (Jung) did a good job of coming in and giving us two good innings and kind of held (Huron) off.” During the five-run inning, James Torigian was hit by a pitch, which drove in a run, and Jung had an RBI single as well. Kline finished with three hits and four RBIs for the Smittys and Foster added two hits and drove in three runs while scoring twice. For Huron, Lucas Holforty cracked three hits and Michael Grogan added two. Each had two RBIs. Aberdeen (27-10) will play its final home games of the season Sunday against Pierre, a 1 p.m. doubleheader at Fossum Field. Then it's on to Rapid City to close out the regular season with a tournament hosted by Post 22 (July 26-29). The Smittys begin post-season play the very next day, with the region tournament at Brookings. Huron 000 310 012- 7 10 2 Aberdeen Smittys 111 030 50x-11 14 4 Lucas Holforty, Elliott Smith (5), Michael Marolis (7) and Logan Kopermann; Christian Christianson, Lucas Jung (6), Justin Kline (7) and Kline, Christianson. 2B - Huron, Travis Berg; Aberdeen, Jordan Foster, Blair Fredrickson. 3B - Aberdeen, Kline.